I have spent 20 years working in nonprofit think tanks, the last 13 as a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas. I also ran the Washington, D.C.-based Council for Affordable Health Insurance for nearly nine years. While I cover a range of political, economic and policy areas, I specialize in health policy. Prior to joining the think tanks, I taught philosophy. I received all three of my degrees—BBA in economics, masters in divinity and Ph.D. in humanities—from Texas universities. I was an ethicist for a medical school's panel reviewing human experimentation. I'm a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Texas Advisory Committee. For several years I was a political analyst for the USA Radio Network, and I hold a 6th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and still teach.

7/05/2012 @ 1:03PM108,720 views

Seven Things (Still) Wrong with ObamaCare

The U.S. Supreme Court may have upheld most of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but that won’t fix the law’s many flaws. Here are seven problems that riddle ObamaCare.

A Bevy of New Taxes. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts engaged in some tortured reasoning to allow the mandate requiring people to have coverage based on Congress’s power to tax. Now Obama administration officials vehemently deny the mandate is a tax, even though that’s exactly what President Obama’s Justice Department claimed in its court briefings.

But setting aside the mandate and its penalty — er, tax — ObamaCare is filled with new taxes, at least 20 by some counts. There is a:

3.8 percent surtax tax on investment income and a 0.9 percent surtax on Medicare taxes for individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000;

40 percent tax on comprehensive health coverage that costs more than the designated cap; and

New taxes that apply to Flexible Savings Accounts and Health Savings Accounts.

Obviously, several of these taxes will hit the middle class. So it’s more than a little strange that the administration so adamantly denies the mandate’s penalty is a tax. What difference does one more “tax” make to an administration that has passed so many?

A Nation of Takers. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University recently reported that about one-third of American households received Medicaid, food stamps or some other means-tested program in 2010. Add in Medicare, Social Security and unemployment and nearly half of all households are getting a government check.

ObamaCare dramatically expands that number. Medicaid coverage will go to an estimated 16 million more Americans. There are health insurance subsidies for those in the exchanges with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($92,000 for a family of four), which is about 75 percent of all U.S. households. We don’t know yet how many Americans will take advantage of the exchanges, but it likely will be millions — especially if employers start dropping their coverage.

Thus, thanks to ObamaCare, liberals will finally have the large majority of Americans taking money from the government (i.e., taxpayers).

A Maze of Cross Subsidies. ObamaCare is also filled with cross subsidies, a way of transferring wealth without using the tax code. Take one example: It requires health insurers to accept people with a pre-existing condition — which mostly affects individuals buying their own coverage — and puts a cap on how much insurers can charge. It is a popular provision only because most Americans don’t realize they will be paying higher premiums.

In order for individuals with preexisting conditions to get coverage at less than their actuarially rated risk, young and healthy people must pay more than their fair share — a lot more. Many of them will want to drop coverage because it will be so expensive; hence the mandate to try and force them to stay in. But even if everyone is in the pool — which they won’t be — the young and healthy will spend billions of dollars paying higher-than-necessary premiums to cross subsidize others.

Perverse Economic Incentives. The problem with the current health care system is that the economic incentives are all wrong. Patients have little reason to be value-conscious shoppers in the health care marketplace, because in the vast majority of cases someone else is paying the bill.

Doctors don’t know who their real customer is: the patient getting care or the government, employer or insurer paying for it. The situation often pits health care providers against patients who want everything and the payers who want to limit costs. It’s a no-win situation of perverse economic incentives, and ObamaCare only exacerbates the problem.

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I agree with the notion of Obamacare not being right for the nation in our time. Similarly, Medicare started in a time when birth rates were higher, people stayed married, and life expectancy was much less. In the current conditions, Medicare is simply not sustainable. Here is a testimony before the Senate Special Committee on Aging: http://bit.ly/J8zsXc

We now know with that Obama’s healthcare plan was designed by Obama to lift him to the heights of infamy in the image of FDR. A BHAG (Big Halaceous Albatross of Government) for Obama’s vision of a more government-dependent America.

Already half of us don’t pay any taxes and half of Americans receive government provided benefits from the other half who do. Why anyone would want more government in their lives is beyond me. It’s already so intrusive. I am convinced the reelection of Obama will virtually bankrupt us. He will have all the “flexibility” he needs to cram government mandates down our throats for four years.

Of course Obamacare was sold to We the people as a mandate before it was sold to the Supremes as a tax – a bait-and-switch they were ok with. They are not ok with it being a mandate, and here again the morons in the administration want to reclassify it as a mandate. Tell the truth – You wanted it to be upheld as a tax. It’s a tax. Now take your medicine.

And now we know with absolute certainty that the promises Obama made to assure his election in 2008 were colossal lies. Middle class Americans who make under $250,000 per year WILL have to pay new and larger taxes. In fact, this is now the largest tax on Americans (especially those with incomes under $250,000) in the history of the United States.

To take the pressure off of the Obamacare debacle Obama is now focusing on Romney as an outsourcer of jobs at Bain, while he rides around in his bus that was built in Canada, uses internet and marketing sources from Canada, and while Obama’s head of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness jobs Jeffrey Immelt of GE who outsources more jobs than any other company in the world, and pays no U.S. taxes.

I just hope Romney gets the fire in his belly to go after this usurper in chief.

Although it may revolve around health care, ObamaCare enables our government to gain ever more power and control which will become a significant ‘learning moment’ to determine the future path our republic should pursue.

As with many laws that are passed (think medicare and medicaid), they are not perfect out of the legislative box. They are further legislated to remove or add those necessary things to make the laws better.

It would be a great help if armchair quarterbacks would rather make constructive suggestions rather than using sensationalism to get eyeballs on their respective “pages”.

Ok…. You can knit-pick “Obamacare” to death, but guess what?? The rest of the civilized world has universal, socialized healthcare, and they love it!! Have you ever talked to a British or French Or Canadian or Swedish person about their healthcare??? I mean, really? I have. It works great for them, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. “Obamacare” may be flawed, but it’s only because of the ridiculous compromises posed by the belligerent Republicans in Congress. We need universal healthcare, plain and simple, just like every other modern, Western civilization has. End of story. (P.S. Did you watch the London Olympics?? Did you see their theatrical celebration of the National Health Service??? Yeah, “socialized” medicine is just awful…… Wake up and smell the coffee!)

Actually, Tabb, I have written a lot about those other countries, and hosted Capitol Hill briefings in Washington with health care experts from those countries. Several years ago I was on a bus going from St. John’s, New Brunswick, CA, to Bangor, Maine, filled with Canadians who couldn’t get timely care in Canada. I wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal. Last week I was part of a panel interviewing a member of the UK Parliament about the NHS. And while it is true that most of the citizens of those countries support their health care systems, it is also true that they have lots of problems, including lack of access to many of the services we have.

All we really need are affordable health insurance premiums. There are some of us that are pretty healthy and never have go to the Dr. Insurance for my family is about 18% of what I make, that’s insane. Not including federal taxes, med, or any other deductions. Sometimes I wish I lived in Canada or a country in Europe, but I guess Houston is one of the best places to live in the US. Unfortunately, the country is in debt while big banks and insurance companies are profiting billions. We need univeral healthcare. Meanwhile we are paying for free universal healthcare for Iraqi and Afghanis. Good for them, but what about our own countries citizen’s? We are paying for a part of the people we were/are at war with? Hmmm…If our founding fathers were here, they would be extremely diappointed.

until the power structure has to suffer the consequences of obama care nothing will probably be done to correct the defects in the program personal change is difficult and darn slow the elite rarely understand they need to lead by example